


Should've Known From My First Breath

by LotusRox



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M, Movie 2: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:40:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LotusRox/pseuds/LotusRox
Summary: "You aren't going to die", Graves shushed, as if he had managedactual words,and Credence let out a weak huff of a laugh. There wasn't much else he could do in his state.The good part was that at least he didn't fear Hell anymore.-----A rescue, a reunion, and the beauty of being late but nottoo late.





	Should've Known From My First Breath

**Author's Note:**

> There was carnage all around them.

It came with a sizzling sound of curses, a strum of acrid smoke. Rust and rot and bile, a confusion of corpses, Grindelwald, the blurry shapes of the Task Force moving in tandem. The ground was trembling in flashes of red - Mr. Scamander and his brother breaking a loud abyss open under their feet.

“Credence!”

There was a roar. A scream, and then many, and all of it came silenced by five inches of cotton and fog, unreal like the world beyond a Shield spell.

Credence’s mind was barely there, clinging to the physical plane. His body wasn’t doing much better. He hadn’t felt the ground slamming through his bones after he fell. Didn’t know what garbled sounds were coming out of his mouth when a blurry shape in black and dirty white knelt beside him, trying to rouse him.

Pain was an odd thing to be used to.

"You aren't going to die", Graves shushed, as if he had managed _actual words_ , and Credence let out a weak huff of a laugh. There wasn't much else he could do in his state.

The good part was that at least he didn't fear Hell anymore.

The best part was that, right now, it felt a lot like they were in private. A proper goodbye was a luxury he didn’t think he’d ever get.

But Graves was serious. He picked him up, paid no attention to the violence behind them turning the place into rubble. The blood staining Credenece's burgundy shirt in darker reds spread to the front of his still too-expensive three piece.

"You aren't going to die, boy", and it was impressive, how Graves didn't even look scared. He was serious, severe, reassuring in the best way he knew how. "They've tried too many times. They’ve failed."

"Mr. Graves...", and Credence didn't tell him how _tired_ he was of surviving over and over. 

"You and I, we're the same."

He Disapparated them away from the battlefield.

The next time Credence woke up, to his utter bafflement, he was lying in a clean bed, somewhere that smelled like a forest, like the ocean.

Graves was asleep on a chair by the open window, summer breeze blowing in.

(He'd learn later, this was Mr. Scamander's family home. He'd learn later, patching him up had taken three wizards, none of whom was a healer. Mr Graves had lent his magic, Mr. Scamander had worked the reach-around that would soothe the Obscurus so it didn't lash out, Albus Dumbledore had chanted _Vulnera Sanentur_ until hoarse out of compassion, and also out of spite - So Gellert Grindelwald wasn’t discarding yet another _traitor_.)

He shouldn't be alive, but he was glad he had made it.

Glad he had gotten to see Mr. Graves again, the real one, the one who had reached out to him _months_ before the impersonation. Soothed his hurts because it wasn't legal, but it was _right._

Gellert had earnestly believed he was dead. Graves, in too much of a bad shape first, and too focused on taking revenge next, had done nothing to dispel the notion.

"You let him go", he told to the slumbering man. There were new wrinkles in his face, new grays lending shimmer to the dark sweep of his hair. Credence had never seen a man so handsome. "You let him go to take me here."

And then, Mr. Graves went and opened his eyes.

"I did", he admitted, soft enough to shatter walls.

"For me."

"Yes."

Credence would've left it here. But things unspoken, they had never ended well for him. So much could've been avoided.

"You shouldn't have. I don't deserve it." And he was speaking with the same quiet calm he had always wore so well. It had never kept him _safe,_ but it had helped his survival.

"There's going to be some other chance to kill the fucker", Graves replied simply. Stretching, walking to the bed, sitting by his side. "The Task Force can have him, for all I care.”

What price had this man payed for him? Hadn’t he left people back there? Mr. Scamander, his brother, the Aurors…

His voice had left no space for regret. The immovable quality of the statement stopped Credence’s heart. 

Graves started it anew when he added, “Wouldn’t have had another shot at getting you back."

(Credence would learn later, it was true. That they had to practically tie back whatever his soul was to whatever his body was. That Graves had lost all of his calm along with him losing consciousness, had Apparated in the safest place he knew this side of the pond screaming for help in the middle of the night until Newt’s parents had opened the wards.)

He wasn't sure what was he doing, leaning into this man's personal space the way he had learnt felt _good,_ vanishing cold and hunger, and the loneliness of an entire city that had never looked at him.

Hope was an odd thing to not be used to.

"Lost chances", Graves murmured against his short hair, "We've had too much of those, don't you think?"

And Credence didn't remind this man he was a murderer and a terrorist and something other than human. He couldn't remember any of his litany of Damnation when Mr. Graves tilted his head up to kiss him, lingering and soft, flooding the ashes of him with new life and something _holy._

(He'd learnt later, it was the same for Mr. Graves.)

Credence leaned away just so he could read his face. There was love spelled in what he saw, and his smile bloomed without permission, truer than anything he had done in the past year.

This wretched existence of his, he had always known he'd never amount to anything good, and yet... Maybe there was no sin in trying again. Even though he had no clue of how.

"Thank you", he murmured, and kissed him again, seeking an embrace and _finding it._ It felt like coming home, for the first time.

The rest could wait 'till the morning.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes, in all honesty, from a [Depeche Mode song](https://genius.com/Depeche-mode-home-lyrics) again that is only tangentially related to this fic |DD
> 
> This was a short piece that I originally wrote for Lyss ([Maggiedragon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/maggiedragon))and Elsie ([Na Shao](http://archiveofourown.org/users/na_shao)), and then the trailer came and left all of us in such a deep state of WTF, I had to revisit it and polish it so it'd be worth publishing. The entirety of my love goes to them, for those two and our chat shenanigans account for like, 95% of my inspiration these days.
> 
> Also, Elsie does all my headers lately and I couldn't be more impressed with her graphic design prowess, ok ❤


End file.
